Losing A Very Winnable Game

Posted in Uncategorized by Flavor on April 19, 2016

Last night was irritating. And I’m not just talking about the D-backs uniforms.

Peavy pitched about as well as he’s going to pitch this year. And as your #5, he was passable. The bullpen was atrocious and if they keep vomiting all over the mound we will see management act in bold, swift fashion. They didn’t build a team with a 170 million dollar payroll this year just to watch the one-inning guys piss it all away.

The good news is that Houston sucks and the Warriors can beat anyone. Also, someone told me the Sharks lost. Boo hoo.

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The glaringly awful pen aside, what pisses me off no end is wasting opportunities. Another night of getting the bases loaded and not taking advantage early. Same thing with. Merda the other day. like everyone is waiting for someone else to Come through.

Stocks in Strickland, who clearly has Casilla’s heir apparent as closer, took a major hit last night in yet another bad performance. That leaves the door ajar and Law’s leading foot appears to already have a couple of toes crossing the portal.

After a hiccup or two vs Milwaukee and the LaBumbos, Gearrin has posted a couple of excellent outings and with that has assumed some confidence in an expanded role. Flubs by Casilla and Strickland may yank Law outta that idealized fireman role and into the closer slot within the next several weeks. Wondering which reliever gets the call from Sacville.

Bullpen callup is likely to be one of 2 leading candidates: Steven Okert or Jake Dunning. We had a look at Dunning in 2013 when he posted a 2.84 ERA in 25 innings. He had struggles, ups and downs, over the next couple years in the minors but appears to be getting it back together at Sac-town. His ERA there is, 2.84 again where his walks and K’s are both at 4 and the righthander has been pretty stingy giving up walks and hits/AB at a 0.95 clip.

Lefty Okert, who has yet to appear in The Show, has demonstrated excellent control with ZERO walks vs 8 K’s. Younger by 3 years or so than Dunning, Okert has slightly better ERA and W H/ I.P. at 2.70 and 0.90. So the question facing Bochy, Righetti and Gardner is experience vs fresh-face and righty vs. portsider. There are one or two other possible candidates and i have not checked the 40-man for status there. Current stats, though, indicate Dunning or Okert gets the call.

Okert is the more intriguing of the two, to me. He’s got a good slider that makes him possible LOOGY material, a nice eventual replacement for Lopez. A young pen of Gearren, Law, Osich, and Okert could be something solid to build on.

James doing what James does. I love it. I agree the starters needs to step it up.

One more thing regarding Belt not getting rung up on that close pitch last night. I wasn’t criticizing Belt for not swinging, I was just surprised he didn’t get called out. If I were going to criticize him for anything, it would have been the Davey Lopes-style immediate toss of the bat and step toward first base before the ump had made his call.
C’mon BB9….the umps don’t like you already, don’t give them more reasons to screw you over!

I know you weren’t criticizing. Belt’s acting like he really belongs, trying to assert he’s a player who will no longer be noted for his slightly off . . . presentation. I still can’t believe how little he’s K’ed so far.

Strick had zero command last night. Breaking ball was way off the plate and fastball was waist high to mid thigh and hitters weren’t missing them. I still think it isn’t the arm that’s the issue with this guy, it’s north of there.

One bad pitch has cost Giants last couple–Smardz leaving one in the middle for Joc and Casilla one strike from a save doing the same to a LH.

I know Giants scored some runs last night, but only 1 after early going while DBax did the opposite after being down 6-2. GIDP to end it kinda sums up frustration. Hard to fathom success Brad Ziegler has had against SF…and success of AZ in general, having won 8 of last 10 at ATT.
How the F does that happen?

I know everyone is in love with flamethrowers, but Strick’s 97 didn’t bother anyone last night. ML hitters can handle a fastball if it’s somewhere they like it. Regardless of how hard (or not) you throw pitchers have to be able to locate and have command of their pitches. Right now command seems to be escaping Giants pen guys, tho it is early in season.
Bochy is gonna get some grief for overworking Kontos but I do believe most relievers want to be out there as often as possible. Kontos was pretty effective last year when rotation included Lincecum Hudson and Peavy.
This year was supposed to be different but pen already has couple guys down and uh, some others with issues.

Yeah it’s all cyclical. Yadda yadda yadda. Meanwhile , we’re 1-6 in the past 7. Yah the pen has been bad, and the starters, but no one is doing a lot of damage with the bats lately. We’ve scored on wild pitches more than anything recently.

I kid but Still. We should have buried Anderson in the 1st. We let him off the hook. Just like Maerda.

Law sure has nasty stuff.Besides his heater his drop off the table breaking ball and curve are deadly. Struck and his one pitch pony is getting raked.He can’t get any other pitch over to be effective.Wish Boch would go with Law in a bigger role..

I totally dig Law, with the only concern being with how violent his delivery is. I hope he’s able to stay healthy with that delivery. But there are a lot of pitchers with violent deliveries who do pitch many years in MLB.

So sorry to hear that Pete Zorn passed away today. Over the years he had done a lot of recording and touring with Richard Thompson, playing a variety of stringed instruments and wind instruments. Incredibly talented musician, and by all accounts, a really nice person. Seems like we’ve lost a lot of great musicians this year already.
I saw him in concert with Richard and band about 12 years or so ago, at the Fillmore in SF. A wonderful night of music. We got in line very early, and stood in the front row during the show, and just soaked it all in.

With so much going on in bay area sports it’s hard to pay much attention to Sharks, but playoff hockey is way cool. Sharks played pretty well in LA but with memory of that epic Heimlich few years ago vs. Kings it’s gotta weigh on them. Hope they can pull through. One of those perennially good teams to never win one, fans always brought up short.

Btw, 2 other things I dig about the sport tho I rarely watch it–first, players routinely sound like baseball players from 50s or something. TV guys are often right btw benches during games, great perspective and also for talking to guys on bench
Second the concept of 2 min penalty(or more depending) is really cool. Watched Sharks score a goal 5 on 3 the other night when Kings took another penalty with a guy already in the box. Late game when a team down 1 pulls goalie for extra skater, very intense. Power play is fun to watch and can change momentum for either team.

Can you imagine having to play b-ball with only 4 defenders? Or baseball short a fielder for an inning?

plus officials will send 2 guys messing with each other both off the ice to the penalty box, regardless of who started it or did something more egregious. Often in b-ball and I’m sure other sports refs only get the second guy who is retaliating. Bogut is very good and sneaky about stuff like that, often unnoticed.

I thought the pitching splits James posted earlier were interesting. I’m not seeing that “holds” are reflected. Maybe that’s just not a metric reported but inherited runners scoring would be attributed to the starters wouldn’t they? Eh, whatever.

His stats don’t reflect it but I’m not impressed with Gearrin and have never really understood what the club loves so much about Strickland. I guess all those bombs in the 2014 playoffs weren’t impressive enough or something. The dude throws gas without movement. As others have said there’s nothing special about that. If he could throw Casilla’s curve that would be nice.

Hockey can be great if you are there. The boobtoob is too speed and drama dependent to be right with baseball and not fast enough to grasp the full and total impact zone of hockey. They love them some smashemup football and highly athletic, dramatic but ultimately stoopid boobsketball.

Hockey kicks ass live…especially if you are near the ice, and can hear those dudes get the wind knocked out of them when they get checked into the boards. But, I still like to watch on the ol’ boob tube, but live is definitely better. With baseball, I almost prefer watching it on TV, or listening via the radio than live. I do like to follow via the radio when I am at the yard, too.

That game SUCKED BALLS. As Charlie alluded to earlier about the Snake’s pitchers being deep into pitch count, there is no reason our boys should not have put that game away. Fucking frustrating. And I am SO HAPPY I bailed after 9. When our boys could not win it in the bottom of the frame, I just had that feeling that this was going to be one of those games that got away, and will hurt. Woke up this morning to, unfortunately, confirm my suspicions. Fucking D-Backs suck. Why does this sorry ass team continue to have our number (rhetorical question).

To Flavor’s comment at 9:10, I am not averse to Law. I just thought that Gearrin and Strickland were going to get more of the late-inning work that has been Romo’s innings. And I have been a proponent of Strickland, but that luster is fading quicker than a tarnished paint job in the Mojave summer sun. I think Gearrin has earned a more expanded role in the late innings, and I have liked what I have seen from Law. Strickland’s shit is just TOO STRAIGHT. Any ML hitter worth their salt is going to tattoo his shit. That has to change or his ass will be on a slow train back to Sacto.

Okay…enough of that bullshit. Put that one behind us and T it up for a W tonight. Cain has looked pretty decent. I like the way he is throwing, he just needs to stay away from his nemesis of late…that ONE INNING MELTDOWN.

Yeah, Cain has the annoying habit of getting ahead in the count and not being able to seal the deal. He has pitched well lately, but he always seems to get his pitch count high too early thus prompting an early exit.

Yeah, it was a lot of flipping back and forth yesterday. Haven’t heard anything more about Steph, but I’ll be worried until I see him on the floor . . . The bigs pretty much negated Howard. Fricking Livingston boxed him out in the post . . .

I bailed with the same perspective in the 10th, though had napped out between the first and that fatal top of the 9th. One could just feel that lack of spark in the team. Perhaps they were still down from the pair of losses in LaLaLand.

I tried to watch both games last night, but I got pulled into the dubs game more. When I turned off the game, I think the G’s had a 2 run lead. Haven’t been able to watch many games lately. But it looks like no one is hitting and the pen is getting worked over. The hitters will straighten it out, there are too many professional hitters on this team. As far as the pen. I don’t know, sounds like Strickland is a one pitch wonder. As far as the big picture goes, it’s still very early, and I think this team’s true identity is closer to the one we saw the first than the one we saw last week.

Agree with Willie D on all counts about hockey, this re: his 12:13 post. I love the game. People tell me it is boring. Bullshit. It IS low-scoring, but boring? No fucking way. These guys are incredible athletes…many as big as an NFLer, who skate, try to control the puck, all while the other team is trying to take their head off or put them on their ass. It is a great skill game, IMNSHO.

I have been a Shark fan for a looong time, and I have just got to the point of not getting my hopes up too high. I was flipping back and forth between the Giants and Warriors, but also peeking-in on the Sharks on occasion. Sucks they let last night’s game slip away.

As always, I hope the Sharks go deep this year. I still yearn for that year when they hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup.

Wow- what a fall from grace for Heston. He ran roughshod on the league for half a season last year, and then ran out of gas, and his gas-tank hasn’t refilled yet or something. Or the league got a book on him eventually, and he hasn’t adjusted for that yet.

Total shocker on Heston. Well, he will get starts in Sactown and gawd only knows they need one what with their current record of something like 2-9. Broadway is also a bit of a surprise as his stats are not nearly as good as fellow MLB experienced Dunning. I did happen to correctly guess Okert would get the call. Well, it was more of a semi-educated surmise.

It sucks losing ANY game, at ANY point in the season, but those like last night’s cluster fuck, especially hurt. Wash that shit off and get ’em tonight. I am not going to trip too much on any of this until we get close to the quarter mark for the season. It will be interesting to see how things (bullpen, etc.) change between now and then (if they do change at all).

When the guy was getting escorted away during the game, and the woman he was with pulled the hoodie down completely over her head, and joined him in the walk of shame, that was pretty funny. It looked like a “perp” walk.

Another thing that was kind of pathetically funny was how he obliviously celebrated after picking up the ball, and everybody is staring at him like he’s an idiot. And then he finally realizes everybody thinks he’s an idiot.

Yeah but Loo, if Duffy gets a demotion you will lose 1/2 of your 30 HR total between him and Panik..
Though it could be made up with a quick unexpected promotion for Arroyo to play 3rd to get those homers back..

Saw my first 2016 Giants game last night (including all of Spring Training) upon my return from SE Asia, so my opinion/observations are probably out of sync with the rest of the Flappers here:

1. Duffy’s a BALL PLAYER . . . He definitely will be as good as last season or better this season.

2. I know most Flappers dislike Pagan here, so I’m gratified to see him doing well this season. Dude was injured last season, thus the subpar play last season in my opinion.

3. I never liked Heston and after his horrid 2nd half last season, I predicted he wouldn’t make it out of spring training. I was wrong. Nevertheless, I wasn’t wrong by much. I don’t think he returns as anything except a spot starter or long relief.

4. Specs is just another guy IMO.

5. Peavy is “fork”ed . . . get rid of him.

6. Cain – jury is still deliberating, but I’m thinking that he will get better. Coors gets everyone, so he gets a pass on that putrid start.

7. Johnny Cueto (3-0, 3.38) and Jeff Samardzija (3.72) have been as advertised – very good.

8. Bullpen reinforcements will stick. I really like Okert, 24, who is 1-0 with a 2.70 ERA in four Triple-A games this year. GET RID OF STRICKLAND . . . Nice arm, but “upstairs” is wanting.

9. Sherpas are SMOKE AND MIRRORS. How many times do I have to say this? They are ALWAYS lights out in April and May . . . Begin falling apart like a cheap suit by the All Star break.

10. What the fuck do I know? I’ve been in SE Asia for the last 2 months. 🙂

Postscript to what I said about the Rockies – Reds stole 5 bases off the Rockies (De La Rosa) in the 2nd inning. You have to go back to the Roaring 20s to find a Reds team stealing that many in an inning.

So Cain has only given up his crooked numbers in the 5th inning all year.Hard to win a game all year if you can’t complete 5 innings to qualify.. However he leaves the game faster to start his 5th of drinking sooner.

Hard of hearing old guy goes to the Doctor. Brings his wife into the examination room with him.
After the once over, Doc says, “I’m going to need a urine sample, a stool sample, and a semen sample.
The old man turns to his wife and asks her, “What did he say?”
She yells into his ear, “He said he needs a pair of your underwear”

One of the most boring games I’ve seen in quite some time or jet lag is magnifying my perception of boredom. The good news is that the Giants are only 1 game out of 1st, sans this game; they have only played 14 games this season; they have 1 more inning to play in game 15; and, I’m back in the good ol’ USA.

I was at a minor league game one time when everyone was given a free loaf of bread when the game was over. How cool was that?
I bet the fans at the Giants game tonight would have felt slightly better if they got a loaf of bread after tonight’s game.

Yea, totally weird … ‘Weird’ is the right word … Did you eat it? I mean, it was meant to be eaten, right? … You sure there wasn’t a ball, a glove, or maybe some worn cleats in there … . You would’ve probably noticed that, right? .. Yep, very weird.

I think Boch needs to find a way to snap these guys outta their collective somnambulism .. If I may be so bold to suggest … after losses such as these many we’ve seen in the past week, Boch blasts the ‘Cars for Kids’ ditty in the locker room .. That’ll fuckin snap’em out of it!

Well .. the baseball gods giveth, and the bb gods taketh away … It’s like we are being punished for all that amazing spine tingling, entertaining baseball we got to witness from our guys at the outset. I mean, come on, those come-from-behind wins against LA at home were completely off the hook. Now, we are in the baseball doldrums .. Feast to famine.